The great adventures of a w-space dweller and his alts in Eve Online.Current project: Figuring out what's new after being away for half a year.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Optimizing the C4 Vargur

Today I tested some new stuff while plexing my Red Giant C4 with the Vargur.

I tested what I would benefit from most when it came to drones; a flight of Hammerheads to help with dps or an mix of target-painting and webbing-drones to make my guns hit better. With the excellent tracking the Vargur have it looks like my biggest problem is range, so while I could not see any difference (I timed one site) while using the e-war drones, the hammerheads shaved a minute or two off my normal time of 23 minutes. So hammerheads it is!

Also since I had two highslots over I decided to try out some salvaging while killing. Even if the Marauders still have their bonuses to tractor beams I wanted to try out the new Mobile Tractor Unit that will do the tractoring and looting for you. Sounds very nice. But would it keep up and would the sleepers attack it?

I discovered that not only did the sleepers show no interest whatsoever in the tractoring unit after I dropped it, it could keep up just fine. And with two tech 2 salvage on the Vargur, so could I. The result was that I could do the sites and salvage, with one pilot, and without the need for time consuming salvaging in that slow Noctis after/during.

As a bonus, I did not have to loose any loot if I had to abort prematurely due to unwanted company. Also, this meant I only needed to warp to each site two times (bookmark + Vargur) instead of three (+salvage) further simplifying things. Simple is good. That's what I'm all about now.

This might actually be a bigger deal than what it at first appears to be. I never liked the Noctis. Don't get me wrong, its a great ship and with skills it does a fantastic job of munching wrecks into salvage, but that's the only thing it does. It is also huge, and for me that's a big deal because I need to fit it into that Orca. Fact is, the function of savage takes up more than half of the ship hangar, and stops me from bringing other ships that would be more useful.

But this new way of doing things makes the Noctis unneeded, and could potentially unlock a lot of other possibilities for my little setup.